Consultation & Fees Explained

Remote consultation

Once we have received your online referral form and photographs we will contact you to organise a consultation. This can usually take place as a telephone consultation, without the need to attend the hospital.

During the consultation one of our surgeons will review your photographs and questionnaires with you and give an opinion on your condition. They will discuss your symptoms and advise what treatments may be suitable. They will discuss the details of these procedures with you.

Please note, even if you have opted for a remote consultation, occasionally after reviewing your submitted photographs and information, your surgeon might advise that we really need to see you in person to give an appropriate decision on your hands. If this is the case, our secretary will contact you to organise a clinic appointment at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital in Edinburgh.

Face to face consultation

In the online referral form we will ask you if you would prefer a face to face consultation instead of a telephone consultation. If you prefer this option, our secretary will contact you to organise an appointment at Spire Hospitals Edinburgh.

Please note that occasionally following a remote telephone consultation, the surgeon may advise that it is necessary to meet you in person before agreeing on a surgical decision. If this is the case, our secretary will contact you to organise a clinic appointment at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital in Edinburgh. The additional face to face consultation will not be charged.

Our Fees

Self paying patients:

Consultation Fees

Our fee for your initial consultation - whether remote by telephone or face to face at Shawfair Park Hospital in Edinburgh - is £ 200.00

If we have a telephone consultation and we agree that it would be best to review you in person instead, the fee for your face to face consultation will be waived - you will only pay for one consultation

A set number of follow up consultations after surgery are included in “comprehensive packages” for operations. Other or additional follow-up consultations cost £ 100.00 each.

Additional Costs

Please notice that surgery, X-rays, scans, bloods, additional treatments such as steroid injections that we may advise as part of your care are charged as additional costs to that of consultations. Your surgeon will inform you of these additional costs before you agree to any additional treatment.

Percutaneous Needle Fasciotomy Fees

Needle Fasciotomy operations have a flat cost of £ 1700.00 (inclusive of surgeon fee and hospital fee) - this is independent of how many digits are treated. Follow up appointments are often not needed, if desired one follow up appointment is organised free of charge.

Post-operative hand therapy is usually not needed. In cases in which it is advisable, it can be organised at an additional cost.

Open Surgery Fees (Fasciectomy and Dermofasciectomy)

At Spire Shawfair Park Hospital we offer surgical treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture with a “comprehensive package” - this means that you pay one single fee directly to Spire Shawfair Park Hospital ahead of your surgery, rather than receiving multiple invoices. The comprehensive fee includes the surgeon’s fee, the fee for the anaesthetist (if one is needed), your hospital admission, theatre use and nursing care on the day of surgery, post-operative nursing care including removal of stitches and dressing of grafts, routine initial hand therapy (usually three sessions following open surgery), and routine post-operative follow up appointments with your surgeon (usually two-three following open surgery).

The typical cost of an inclusive care package for open surgery can vary from around £3,400 for a single digit fasciectomy to around £7,000 for the most complex cases.

Your surgeon may be able to provide you with an estimate of the cost of the surgery options you discuss at the time of your consultation, but the definitive quote will be provided to you by Spire Shawfair Park Hospital once your surgery has been booked. Please notice that the definitive quote from Spire may differ from the estimate provided to you by your surgeon.

Additional follow up appointments to those included in the comprehensive package cost £ 100.00 each.

Please notice that the comprehensive package does not include your initial consultation with your surgeon, which is invoiced separately.

If additional hand therapy becomes needed after your surgery, beyond what is included in the comprehensive package, this will need to be arranged separately. Nicki Cliff will be happy to see you at her hand therapy studio in Edinburgh, or she will try to help you identify a hand therapist closer to your home if you live some distance from Edinburgh.

Insured patients:

Consultation

Our surgeons are registered with all the common insurance companies. It is advisable that you contact your insurer ahead of your consultation and check they will cover for the cost of your consultation with a hand surgeon for your Dupuytren’s disease.

If the insurance company refuses to cover the cost of the consultation, the patient is liable.

Surgery

After your consultation, we will provide you with a “procedure code” for your planned surgery. You will need to contact your insurer with this code prior to your admission to inform them of your treatment and confirm that it is covered by your policy. You will need to obtain a pre-authorisation number from them for the treatment.

Please note that we restrict our fees to no more than the maximum benefit allowed by your insurer for the surgical procedure. Normally this can be found by consulting the Fee Schedule on your insurer’s website. Please note that this fee does not cover treatment of unforeseen complications.

Please check that your insurer covers the cost of an anaesthetic if it is required. Anaesthetic care for our patients is usually provided by a member of the Almond Anaesthetic Group. Some insurance companies may not reimburse the anaesthesia fee in full. This means that you may be responsible for paying directly to Almond Anaesthesia Group any amount which exceeds what your insurer covers. For further information, please visit www.almond-anaesthesia.com

Please also check that your insurer will cover the hospital’s fees - these are in addition to the surgical and anaesthetic fee.

CMA Statement

Please notice that our surgeons exclusively provide care for Dupuytren’s disease through Edinburgh Dupuytren’s Group and that EDG operates with fixed surgeon’s fees for consultations and procedures for Dupuytren’s disease agreed by EDG surgeons.

You can compare independent information about the quality of private treatment offered by our surgeons, other healthcare practitioners, by Spire Shawfair Park Hospital and other private healthcare providers from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) website: www.phin.org.uk.

You can find out more information about Spire Healthcare at www.spirehealthcare.com.

Online referral & remote assessment

Our online referral forms will ask you to provide us with information on your condition, on your past medical history, and to submit to us some photographs of your hands taken with a mobile phone in three standard projections (you will need someone’s help to do this).

From the questionnaires and photographs we will be able to assess if the condition affecting you is likely to be Dupuytren’s disease, how severe it is, and how much it is affecting you.

Importantly, the photographs are usually enough to assess what treatment(s) may be indicated in your case.

Surgery

During your consultation, either remote or face to face, you can decide with your surgeon whether or not you want to proceed with surgery. Alternatively, you may choose to take some time to digest the consultation discussion and read our information leaflets and can contact us later to inform us of your decision.

Please note, in most cases, we will be able to organise your surgery directly from your remote telephone consultation. In some cases your surgeon might advise that it is actually necessary to meet you in person before agreeing on a surgical decision is- our secretary will organise a clinic appointment at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital in Edinburgh, but you will be charged only for the initial telephone consultation.

FAQs

  • Edinburgh Dupuytren’s Group is dedicated to the treatment of Dupuytren’s contracture. Our hand surgeons all have a special interest in Dupuytren’s disease.

    Our surgeons also provide assessment and treatment for a wider range of hand conditions, but in their activity as single private practitioners outside EDG. Conditions they treat include compressive neuropathies (like carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome); tendon problems (such as De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis); hand cysts, lumps, tumors; osteoarthritis (base of thumbs and small joints of the fingers); rheumatoid arthritis…

    If you would like to be assessed by one of our surgeons for a condition other than Dupuytren’s disease please book a consultation with them by contacting directly the booking office at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital.

    Please see our CMA Statement above.

  • Currently, all our operations and face to face consultations take place in Edinburgh, at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital. We offer remote consultations to patients from anywhere in the UK, but if treatment is agreed or a face to face consultation is needed, they take place in Edinburgh.

  • In our experience, video-consultations are very dependant on technology available and tend to run into technical issues. We find that telephone consultations are more reliable, and standardised photographs are a better tool to assess hands with Dupuytren’s disease than live videos.

  • Yes. Our consultant hand surgeons are registered with the common insurance providers (AVIVA, BUPA, AXA), and others can in most cases be agreed on an ad hoc basis.

    Please se our “FEES” section above, or use the “CONTACT US” form if you need more information.

  • If you prefer to directly see one of our surgeons in person, you can use our “contact us” form or email us, and our secretary will be in touch to arrange a face to face appointment at Spire Shawfair Park Hospital in Edinburgh.

  • Please use our “CONTACT US” form to let us know and our secretary will be happy to help.

  • Referrals: submitting your referral to EDG is free of charge.

    Consultations: you will only be invoiced by EDG after a consultation has taken place. If you cancel your consultation and it does not take place no payments are due.

    Additional treatments provided at consultation: if treatment is provided at a face to face consultation (example, an injection), it may result in a cost additional to that of the consultation. For an additional treatment you will typically receive two invoices - one from EDG for the surgeon’s fee, together with the consultation fee; one from Spire for the hospital’s fee. Your surgeon will explain this before you agree to the treatment.

    Surgery: the fee for surgical treatment, including your surgeon’s fee, is paid directly to Spire ahead of surgery.